The unbelievable daftness of Corey Robin (and James Surowiecki)

And, yes, I do love bad pun headlines!

For whatever reason, Corey Robin claims 303 Creative was NOT about religion. Oh, in a technical sense, he's right. The plaintiff (besides having a fake basis for the suit) cited Freeze Peach, but it was ultimately free speech in the service of religious issues. Wiki gets that right, Corey. And you apparently don't read analysis of past or present Supreme Court decisions. Shit, your own piece has Smith saying she didn't BELIEVE in gay marriage. In a quote-tweeting, Robin stands by his statement. I referenced the immediately above, plus the Hobby Lobby angle, in a reply.

Robin, in a later quote-tweet, chides me for not having read the 303 Creative ruling. Maybe I didn't read every word, but I did read Sotomayor's dissent, per my original blogging on this, where she nails it.

In a dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote: “Today, the Court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class.” She was joined by the court’s two other liberals, Justice Elena Kagan and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Sotomayor said that the decision’s logic “cannot be limited to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.” A website designer could refuse to create a wedding website for an interracial couple, a stationer could refuse to sell a birth announcement for a disabled couple, and a large retail store could limit its portrait services to “traditional” families, she wrote.

Nothing about Freeze Speech there, not as the "ultimate cause." So, here's MY quote-tweeting Robin. (I added the Sotomayor as D in a second threaded Tweet):

A. Taking SCOTUS wingnuts at face value?
B. As the TNR fake complainant background story makes clear, this was about religion. As does free speech IN THE SERVICE of religion.
C. Informal Logic 101: Proximate cause? Free speech. Ultimate cause? Religious rights.
Off to blog. https://t.co/cD8kMchx1Q

— TheRealSocraticGadfly (@real_gadfly) July 2, 2023

What else is there to say? Well, let's start with quoting the AP piece from whence Sotomayor's dissent, the link above the pull quote up top:

The decision suggests that artists, photographers, videographers and writers are among those who can refuse to offer what the court called expressive services if doing so would run contrary to their beliefs.

The TNR story speaks for itself. If you can't believe that is strong circumstantial evidence for this ultimately being seen as a religious rights case, Corey, dunno what to say, other than the above plus "Hobby Lobby" and all points in between, per ZZ Top.

Well, yes, I'll cite Amy Howe from Howe on the Court and SCOTUSBlog, writing IN HER LEDE:

The court handed a major victory to business owners who oppose same-sex marriage for religious reasons on Friday.

Ye gads, Corey.

Yes, Gorsuch talked about "speech" but again, Informal Logic 101. But wait, per SCOTUSBlog, let's go back to Sotomayor:

Sotomayor’s 38-page dissent argued that the Constitution “contains no right to refuse service to a disfavored group.” Colorado’s public accommodations law, she contended, only bars business owners from discriminating against members of the public based on (among other things) their sexual orientation. It does not regulate or compel speech at all. If a business owner like Smith “offers [her] goods or services to the public,” Sotomayor suggested, she “remains free under state law to decide what messages to include or not to include.” But what Smith can’t do, Sotomayor stressed, is “offer wedding websites to the public yet refuse those same websites to gay and lesbian couples.”

Again, Corey, you always take winger majority opinions at face value? In his own piece, he actually kind of disses on Sotomayor.

Robin had probably been declining a bit in my opinion for some time. I know the late Leo Lincourt loved him some Corey Robin. That said, Leo was a left-liberal, not a leftist, IMO. (Left-libs, in my US political geography, reject neoliberalism but believe the existing liberal project is certainly capable of reform, rather than needing at least partial rejection. Already in 2018, trying to reduce "socialism" to "freedom," he raised my eyebrows.

His "The Enigma of Clarence Thomas," while good, was not blindingly good; it got four stars from me (expanded version of Goodreads review). See the end for why. "The Reactive Mind" got five, but it's more a 4.5. Per this blog post, based on part on the book, with more hindsight, the idea of American political cycles is either now broken or else in the political science version of a frozen war. I still wouldn't call Trump a full fascist, but after Jan. 6, semi-fascist, or faux fascist, or fascist on the cheap? Yeah, that I would. I don't know, and don't really care a lot, if Robin's thought has emerged.

And, I forgot that a full decade ago, Robin came off as a semi-apologist for Thomas Jefferson. I also note that Robin way back then claimed I had misread him. This is "fool me once ... fool me twice" territory, Corey. I didn't misread you. Nor did I misread your stanning for Dear Leader. (Both that, and the Jefferson, were while Leo was still alive; not sure what he said about either.)

And, on the Jefferson, I referenced that to James Surowiecki when he butted in on the Twitter convo. Of course, he's a neolib at the Atlantic, so he's going to say that. He's as stupid and literalist as Robin. He's also an elitist from the neolib Eastern Establishment, modern version; you are, if you go to Choate, chud. You're also muted.

After THAT, Sunday night, I picked up another buttinski, jumping on Surowiecki's tweets after I muted him. I told Laurie McKenna, in my first comment, about Wiki, SCOTUSBlog, Sotomayor, and then to backread and not comment again until she'd done so.

Oh, elitist Surowiecki and academic Robin? If I'm not high-enough profile for you, Ronald Brownstein, referencing Sotomayor's dissent, says "religious beliefs."

Gov. Strangeabbott task force notes: terror fears 1, Immigrants and First Amendment 0

So, Gov. Strangeabbott has named an anti-terrorism task force.

Two problems. One of them is getting a lot of play.

The other, sadly, very little so far.

First, in the wake of the racist, anti-immigrant terrorist shooting by Patrick Crusius, the task force is stacked with anti-immigrant hardliners. So no, Strangeabbott, the ACLU of Texas has legitimate concerns and your snide dismissal is unwarranted.

Second, banning Internet message boards by 8chan or whomever, or banning individual acts of specech unless they contain specific, overt calls to violence, is UNCONSTITUTIONAL. It's a shame, but no surprise, that our gov and former state AG doesn't understand, or else doesn't accept, the First Amendment.

Related to both of these issues, but specifically to Point the Second, I wait seeing what (if anything) the Snooze and other major dailies say on their editorial pages.

Sadly, per the Snooze, ACLU of Texas legal director Andres Segura only, and ONLY mentioned the anti-immigrant issues. No comment on the first amendment issues. Glenn Smith of Progress Texas, in supporting a crackdown on 8chan, didn't mention the First Amendment himself.

This sets aside issues of how much this is real, and how much is head fakes, on the bottom line issue of GUNZ. Abbott has dismissed red flag laws in the past, and Danny Goeb is even more a nutter on gunz than he is.

In other words, expect, per Shakespeare, much ado about nothing.

Once again, note to "antifa," violence is not the answer

Some of the folks with the pretentious name of "antifa" thought it WAS the answer over the weekend.

The basically rebranded old Black Bloc folks, in Portland (remember, the Pacific Northwest is the heart of the Black Bloc) attacked and assaulted Andy Ngo.

The fact that Andy Ngo is a wingnut makes it no better.

It's rare as hell for me to agree with someone like Hillbot Charlotte Clymer on a  matter of substantive politics, but I do here.

The likes of Andy Ngo thrive on producing a reaction just like this. It's fuel for furthering their narrative.

Much of the Black Bloc doesn't care about that anyway. For 20 years, many of them have shown — primarily in violence against property, but, with Trump unzipping his id letting them do the same, now in more violence against persons — that violence is their stock in trade. To be frank, as with the Seattle WTO meeting 20 years ago that kicked off their violence against property (not that I am fetishizing property), I think many of these people just look for excuses.

"Librulz," left-liberals and leftists who are edumacated SHOULD know this. Should have known this for years.

And yet, too much of my Twitter feed over the weekend had comments defending, even glorifying, these nutters.

Also, you may not like the media sources for which he reports, or his style, but he is a journalist.

So, "congrats." You assaulted not only a person, but two of the five freedoms of the First Amendment. Possibly three, as I think again.

I use filters much less on Twitter than on Facebook, via FB Purity. I debated, by Sunday, about doing it there. I didn't. Rather, it lets me keep my eyes open in case I need to do some muting, even blocking.

As with librulz like this:

Fuck his free speech I guess. And yours tbh https://t.co/NtXxBeH3Re

— Kamala Harris is a Cop (@BethLynch2020) July 2, 2019

I'm not a First Amendment absolutist, because I'm not a philosophical absolutist in general. So, I'm not Glenn Greenwald or Popehat, both of whom, IMO, are "First Amendment weaponizers."

But, short of that, I take those five freedoms very seriously.

Beth, and others, could stand to revisit Thomas More's famous lines from "A Man for All Seasons":

Roper: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law! 

More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? 

Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that! 

More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you — where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast — man's laws, not God's — and if you cut them down — and you're just the man to do it — d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.

Or listen to other famous characters or real people.

As both Tevye and MLK knew, riffing on the bible, attitudes like this, riffing on "eye for eye and tooth for tooth," leave the whole world blind and toothless.

Beyond that, there's a boatload of #twosiderism already popping up on this issue.

Time for Idries Shah again:

"To 'see both sides' of a problem is the surest way to prevent its complete solution. Because there are always more than two sides." ~ Idries Shah

This one of his, in photo poster, is also good

Stephen Breyer — part of Supreme Court librulz who hate the First Amendment and Fourth

I have written before about how Democrats' "Oh, the SCOTUS" cry every four years does little to nothing to entice me to jump back into voting for the centrist half of the duopoly. And, librul justices' stance on various portions of the First Amendment is a primary reason why I say this.

Democrats usually appeal to abortion as the big reason why voting for Jill Stein, or Cynthia McKinney, or David Cobb, or Ralph Nader, actually is the "greater evil" or whatever, just as Kuff did last week. I respond, as I have before, that abortion, and LGBTQ issues, are a narrow portion of the spectrum of civil liberties, and that beyond that portion of the spectrum, current librulz on the court have a less than spotless record by several degrees.

I had a big-ticket roundup on this issue just a year ago, when Tony Kennedy retired.

I then counter with noting someone like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the "notorious RBG," doesn't really like the First Amendment that much all the time, or how other Justices have been selective in their support of the Fourth Amendment and criminal rights in general, with examples in that "big ticket" link.

Well, now we have librul Stephen Breyer willing to sacrifice part of the Fourth Amendment, and tying this to that other part of my plaint? He is willing to sacrifice part of the Fourth Amendment that applies to criminals, and more specifically, to policing, so he can "back the blue."

What bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.

And, it's not even the first time Breyer has voted to undercut the Fourth Amendment. He did so three years ago cuz War on Drugs, an issue where both the courts and librul preznits (remember Bill's crime bill? Hillary's "superpredators" related to that? Joe Biden halfway standing by that bill still?) have repeatedly been willing to junk protections for alleged criminals. Elena Kagan, when in the executive branch, has a history of hating the Fourth Amendment applying equally to minorities cuz War on Drugs.

Sonia Sotomayor, when still an appellate judge, didn't think minors deserved full First Amendment protections. She also wrongly thought the First Amendment meant churches were free from some labor law prescriptions.

And one or more librulz — in most cases maybe more than one — have for 25 years consistently hated third parties (like Kuff and fellow travelers like Manny).

And, all nine justices at the time — including librulz Breyer, Sotomayor, Ginsburg and Elena Kagan, along with libertarianish Kennedy, and pseudo-originalist Scalia — hated the First Amendment's freedom of assembly clause.

The real problem is librulz fetishing the Supreme Court over two issues.

Actually, that is probably No. 2.

The real problem is Democrats thinking they "own" the actual or potential votes of anybody to the left of diehard Republicans.

Dream on.

And, the more you think that, the further from reality it becomes.

==

Update, June 17: Turns out that Breyer kind o hates democracy in general at times, voting in the minority to approve Virginia House Rethuglicans' appeal of a lower court ruling on redistricting and gerrymandering. Now, I know the case was more about the issue of standing, but still.

Update, July 1: Breyer and Kagan think a cross is perfectly OK on public land as long as its connected to a war. Part of it with Breyer, per this analysis, is that he was upholding his own previous ruling in Van Orton v Perry, and even if not upholding precedents in general, justices will uphold their own previous rulings through any and every convolution.

For the unfamiliar, Van Orton v Perry was one of the most godawful "civic religion" rulings the court has made in at least 20 years. It's the one where the court said that the state of Texas could keep the Ten Commandments on state Capitol grounds.

Any unbiased idiot could see that the Eagles chose the Ten Commandments because of all the other God vs Godless communism stuff of the Cold War, and that it was NOT promoting "religion" in the abstract, but Judeo-Christian (usual Judeo fig leaf) ideas in the concrete.

And, he says 40 years passage of time means there was no "intimidation." He ignores the idea that, rather, it meant the intimidation was strong enough nobody publicly protested.

This would be like telling post-World War I original civil rights advocates, "Well, nobody protested for 40 years ..."

Professional thoughts on #CharlieHebdo, #1stAmendment

You may have already read my earlier blog post, with my thoughts about all that's wrong in how so-called social justice warriors attempted to hijack the aftermath of the recent killings of staff at French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.

Now, below, is a an edited version of my own most recent newspaper column, which covered the attacks and issues of free speech — not in France but here in the US.

It would be nice if all were forgiven. Or, if USA Today
would have run other Charlie Hebdo cover art.

The recent attack on the French satirical tabloid newspaper Charlie Hebdo are a reminder that freedom of speech, including satirical speech, is a commodity with an insecure purchase in our world.

It’s also a reminder that journalists, the professional practitioners of freedom of speech, don’t always have the safest jobs in the world. Per the advocacy group Reporters without Borders, in 2014, 66 journalists were killed, 11 assistants were killed, and 19 citizen journalists were, too. Numbers were about the same in 2013.

Charlie Hebdo’s work may not seem “fun” to fundamentalist Muslims, but free speech is free speech, and recognized as such in most of the “developed” world, including but not limited to the United States. (It should be noted that the French magazine doesn’t only skewer Muslims; one cover had the Pope and a Jewish rabbi, as well as a Muslim imam, all demanding the magazine be veiled.)

That said, while the Western world may not totally like Christian and Jewish beliefs and stances getting skewered, it doesn’t generally try to prevent such satire from being published by the media — or from being talked about by the general public.

That’s not quite so true for Muslim-majority nations. Four years ago, the United Nations’ Human Rights Council finally swatted down an attempt to get member nations to criminalize blasphemy. Previous such motions regularly passed the predecessor body to the Human Rights Council, but the United States, followed by the European Union, eventually recognized the free-speech issues that were at stake and voted no.

Various forms of freedom of communication are surely as protected in the U.S. as in modern Europe, are they not? After all, of the 10 original amendments to our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, the First Amendment safeguards exactly these issues.

On paper, yes.

In reality, maybe not so much.

In a country where we have had presidents and congressional leaders of both parties want to control the flow of news, usually on some vague  “national security” grounds, we shouldn’t assume that the First Amendment, and what it’s supposed to protect, is on 100 percent terra firma inside America. If anything, we should operate on a deliberate assumption that the First Amendment is not on such firm ground.

And, it’s not just political leaders; many of the people that make up “We the People” say the same thing. In the past two years, the annual “First Amendment Survey” conducted by the Newseum Institute shows that a full one-third of Americans think the First Amendment’s protections go “too far.”

This is probably a good time to pull up the famous statement by the French literary giant Voltaire:

“I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”

It’s also a good point to remind people that the First Amendment has five freedoms. We’re talking about freedom of the press. Many people know about freedom of religion, which most often results in court cases, and, especially over questions about what Thomas Jefferson’s “wall of separation” meant. This, outside of ideas that the press “abuse” their freedom, is usually the area where people think the First Amendment goes too far.

Also worth noting is that African-Americans and Hispanics are actually more likely than Caucasians in thinking that First Amendment freedoms go too far. So too, per the 2013 survey, the younger people are, the more likely they are to think that the First Amendment goes too far. (Whether this is related to their having grown up in an "always on" world, and if so, whether that's a cause of, or a result of, them being more willing to surrender First Amendment rights and related civil liberties, I don't know. But, it is a good issue, and as ever more people enter adulthood from an "always on" world, one to keep an eye on.)

But, those are just two of five freedoms of the First Amendment.

Beyond that, the amendment also guarantees freedom of speech in general. If I as an individual, not just as a newspaper editor, want to say something like what Charlie Hebdo does, or utter obscenities, or whatever, I can do that. And so can you.

There’s also freedom of petition. We can write our presidents, members of Congress, governors and legislators, and ask them to undertake specific political actions.

And, there’s freedom of assembly. That includes unionizing, voter registration drives and other public organizing work. More controversially to some, it also covers protest marches by anybody from the Ku Klux Klan to the New Black Panther Party and more.

(I chose precisely this because Marlin, Texas is about 50 percent African-American and about 35 percent Caucasian — many of that number being older, and not fully "reconstructed" whites — and thus knowing that one or the other of the two groups would be offensive to about everybody here.)

I presume that Voltaire would also defend to the death our right to assemble, to petition, and to engage in protests.

If Voltaire is not good enough, then we — and those who think the First Amendment goes “too far” — should remember Nazi-era German Lutheran minister Martin Niemöller and his famous poem:

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
“Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
“Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
“Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.”

If we remove free speech, assembly, religion or petition rights from others, or we think the press goes too far in using its freedoms and try to restrict it, there may eventually be nobody to speak for us.

It’s the same story George Orwell tackled in “Animal Farm” — free speech belongs to all of us and should be defended by all of us, for all of us.

Even unpleasant or antagonistic speech.

That's why I don't like public or private university hate speech codes here in the U.S. Even though I think Steve Salaita is not all that, I still don't like him being tripped up over such codes. Humorous issues of schadenfreude that such codes produce at times, including for tripping up so-called "social justice warriors," when we get to serious brass tacks, I don't like them. And, they're not needed on college campuses anyway. Students who are intimidated by a professor have grievance channels. (And, since as much as 75 percent of teaching staff at the average modern higher education outlet today is part-time adjunct instructors, students are quite likely to win such grievances.)

Unfortunately, the American media has surrendered much of its own playing field on this issue in the last decade or so.

Look at the semi-cowardice with which it has self-censored American battlefield deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. Or, now, self-censored in refusing to print any Charlie Hebdo covers, even ones like the one at left that skewer all three monotheisms at once, not just Islam. Or, in one case we know of, where an American newspaper pixelated a picture of somebody in New York reading Charlie Hedbo, pixelating the issue's cover, and only the cover.

Back to my introduction to this column and the issue of unwarranted assumptions.

"We the People" should not assume that the mainstream media will remain a reliable guardian of the First Amendment. We shouldn't assume that it always is one today. Certainly not of the spirit of the First Amendment.

We also, as courts continue to look at the issue of bloggers and such as journalists, shouldn't limit our scope as to who is a member of the media, in part due to the paragraph just above.

#JeSuisCharlie.

#IAmMedia.

#FreeSpeech gets another win from the Supreme Court

I agree with The Nine in killing a Massachusetts law severely restricting conversations around abortion clinics. SCOTUS did not invalidate its previous ruling upholding a Colorado law with "bubble zones," which Massachusetts used before 2007.

It was also sad, but not surprising, to see the ACLU on the wrong side of this case. That said, today's ACLU probably would not defend neo-Nazis marching through Skokie, Ill. It certainly would not defend anti-gay rights activists marching through the Castro district of San Francisco.

Yes, the old bubble-rule law required more police work. Aren't Constitutional liberties worth it?

SCOTUS has also decided Canning vs. NLRB, the case over whether Obama could use presidential recess appointment powers during "pro forma" Senate sessions. A majority ruling said "no," while leaving open the possibility that if pro forma sessions every three days cover longer periods of time, they'll relook at the issue.

On the other hand, the pro-forma sessions in the case at hand covered a two-week period, per the Times. How much longer of a period Senate obstructionists would have to stall out with pro-forma sessions to trigger Stephen Breyer's concerns, I don't know.

Nino Scalia, vaunted alleged "originalist" interpreter of the Constitution, in a partially concurring opinion, shows that his "orginalism" blows with the wind, like much of the hot air out of his mouth, per the first link on this story:

"The majority practically bends over backward to ensure that recess appointments will remain a powerful weapon in the president's arsenal," he said. "That is unfortunate, because the recess appointment power is an anachronism."

What a liar he is.

It would be nice to think he might feel the same way were Obama a Republican. But, I don't believe that.

That said, I, overall, think the ruling was right. As the Times notes, the partial filibuster reform Harry Reid rammed through makes this somewhat, but not totally by any means, nugatory.

The Hobby Lobby vs. Obamacare case looks like its ruling is on hold for one more day.

Will the #SJW petard crank up for #PZMyers?

P.Z. Myers/Wikipedia photo

SJW, for those who don't follow Gnu Atheism and its offshoot, Atheism Plus, or non-secularized versions of politically correct "liberalism," is Social Justice Warriors, like Brittany Cooper and others who recently wanted Stephen Colbert's head on a platter.

P.Z. Myers is P.Z. Myers, a curmudgeonly Gnu who, though of an older age, nonetheless has an emotional foot in the camp of the Plusers, too.

And, why would P.Z. get hoisted by the SJW petard?

Calling hyperconsertives at his faculty home, University of Minnesota-Morris, "assholes" and advocating the disposal of their student newspaper, as reported by Faux News.

It's probably not criminal, though depending on the exact wording of various statements of his, and any meetings he had with any students who engaged in the theft after his initial statements, a prosecutor could at least threaten an "engaging in organized criminal activity" charge or whatever the similar is up in Minnesota.

But that's not where the petard is.

Instead, he may well have violated the faculty code of conduct. Beyond that, he may have officially "intimidated" students in some way. That would be doubly so if any of the writers/editors for this student paper are in any of his classes. You know what would be HI-LAR-I-OUS? If these conservatives do some SJW intelectual judo on him and make him undergo sensitivity training.

As I now read his blog post that appeared to start it all, that SJW petard would be well deserved. He doesn't know what the First Amendment means. The paper is offensive, offensive indeed. However, the First Amendment protects the right to engage in offensive speech.

As for his claim he was only advocating the university not allow the paper on campus? Beyond missing both freedom of speech AND freedom of assembly issues at a public university, here's what he actually blogged:

I would advocate the disposal of their flyers if the Ku Klux Klan started papering our campus, and likewise, the North Star has worn out its welcome and must go. Treat their scattered papers as hate-filled trash and dispose of it appropriately.

Now, one can't prove that he was encouraging students to do this "disposal," so criminal charges would be very hard. On the other hand, beyond sensitivity training for violating any faculty code of conduct? Assuming that Minnesota does not require jury unanimity in civil suits, and has a lower burden of proof than in criminal law, Pee Zee could be facing more than just "sensitivity training" and a slap on the hand from the dean of administration or whomever.

Linking to this is P.Z.'s latest attempt at self-defense

And, he's doubled down on not understanding either one of those First Amendment freedoms in his post-Faux post.

As for whether any of this "should" happen? Given that P.Z. has admitted to facing an (allegedly) unfounded accusation of sexual harassment, yet continues to say we should unreservedly believe people making such claims, the "should" of sensitivity training should happen indeed, in my book.

That said, would he actually learn from this?

Of course, not, other than to play the martyr card, like SJWs in general.

And, now, by posting a recent XKCD comic, PZ is tripling down on his First Amendment stupidity.

The same bottom left and bottom center panels that PZ wants to apply to wingnut students at Minnesota-Morris and some of their ravings apply to him and some of his.

As for the hate emails he's getting, of course, nobody deserves that. But, at least on any of them short of death threats, at the same time, Myers is probably "wearing" them as some sort of Red-A Atheism  Badge of Courage.

===

That said, were I the John Rawls of Minnesota-Morris, here is how I would pass out both distributive and retributive justice.

First, I would make P.Z. undergo sensitivity training at the hands of fellow atheist, Jesus mythicist, hardcore conservative and apparent racialist Robert M. Price, until P.Z. signed a sworn statement admitting that not all, or nearly all, atheists are liberals.

I would then make some of the worst wingnut students undergo sensitivity training by community organizers in Minneapolis -- in the ghetto there.

Next, I would require their paper to give P.Z. the entire front page for one issue.

And, I'd require P.Z. to give them a blog post of at least 1,000 words, and "pinned" to the top of his blog for a week straight.

And, no, this isn't written as pure sarcasm. Were I in place to do so, I'd hand out actual sentencings like this.

===

The part immediately above relates to crime in general. How much of a sentence should be punitive and how much should be rehabilitative? We should strive for rehabilitation in general, but in a particular case, we have to depend on a judge's assessment of how likely rehabilitation is to be achieved. If the judge then thinks a sentence should be primarily punitive, the exact nature of its punishment could theoretically be made more severe in exchange for shorter duration, if the criminal committed what is generally considered a nonviolent crime.

Example? As part of parole, require a Wall Street fraud artist to work at a soup kitchen, a halfway house, etc. Require an arsonist, if a prison workshop can be properly made over, to recreate exactly what she burned.

#WestTX, Westboro Baptist, the First Amendment and liberals

Betty Phelps, daughter-in-law of pastor Fred Phelps and a member
of the Westboro Baptist Church, demonstrates outside the Supreme
Court while justices hear oral arguments in Snyder v. Phelps,
which tests the limits of the First Amendment, October 6, 2010
in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/AFP/Getty Images)

Once again, the family (let's not even use the word "members") of Westboro Baptist Church has threatened to make a collective ass of itself through funeral protests. This time, the family is talking about protests at funerals for first responders and other victims of the West Fertilizer Co.'s plant explosion in the town of that name, just north of Waco.

And, once again, people, including public officials who swear an oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" seem to be overreacting.

I cite McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara.

"Make no mistake about it," McNamara said. "Any attempt by any group or organization to disrupt the funerals of any of our victims of this tragedy will be dealt with swiftly and prosecuted to the full extent of the law."

First, "disrupt" is in the eye of the speaker. It's not a legal term, unless one is loosely using it to refer to disturbing the peace.

Second, if WBC, as per the usual, gets an appropriate protest permit from the city of West or the city of Waco (depending on where they're at; I'm not sure if West itself has a funeral home) and follows the legal restrictions of that permit, they are perfectly within their rights. Indeed, the Supreme Court said so, by an 8-1 vote where Sam Alito, even more visibly than usual for a justice, let his emotions overrule his legal mind.

Beyond that, it's not just the good sheriff (who needs to get his peace officer's license completed, if he wants to do something) that's whiffing on this.

A lot of folks, from what I've seen, of both generally conservative and generally liberal stripes, want to muzzle the Westboro Baptist family.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong.

We still have a First Amendment in place, which has FOUR freedoms, not just one or two.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Everybody knows the first two, even if the Religious Right screws up the first one and many both inside and outside the mainstream media thinks the second one gives the press a privileged stance.

But, most people forget the third and the fourth. Or don't even learn them in the first place.

Folks, the Westboro Baptist family not only has the right to say, or yell, what it wants, as individuals, but, as a group, with the appropriate permit, has the right to make placards and march up and down on a sidewalk.

Period. End of story.

Besides, per a Tweet noted in this story, the Westboro Baptist family, like stereotypical Jehovah's Witnesses (or Alawites in Syria) LIKES the "persecution."

If only, in the cases of future tragedy, the general public would read the Constitution, and elected officials would do their proper duty with as close to zero noise and grandstanding as possible, we'd be better off and the Westboro family would move on down the road sooner.

I added "liberals" at the end of the story because, in this particular case, liberals, (and "outside the tent" groups like Gnu Atheists who may allegedly be liberal and who see this as a cheap way to attack religion) should know better.

Repression of civil liberties is generally associated with rightist impulses in the United States. No good liberal should ever, EVER support the First Amendment being folded, spindled or mutilated in this way.

Prayer Day suit against Perry tossed

Here's the nut graf on the legal ruling, from the latest on the AP:

U.S. District Judge Gray H. Miller said the Freedom From Religion Foundation argued against Perry's involvement based merely on feelings of exclusion, but did not show sufficient harm to merit the injunction they sought.

Disagree with rulings like this in general, whether on freedom of religion First Amendment issues, or on warrantless wiretapping First Amendment issues. It puts an undue burden of proof on a plaintiff who doesn't have sufficient knowledge to cross that threshold.

That said, Tricky Ricky said he was just like Obama:

“My prayer is that the courts will find that the first amendment is still applicable to the governor no matter what they might be doing and that what we've done in the state of Texas or what we've done in the governor's office is appropriate,” he said. “It's no different than what George Washington or Abraham Lincoln or President Truman or President Obama have done.”

That said, previous rulings on the National Day of Prayer were wrong for similar reasons.

More here on the decision.

Draw a Gnu Atheist Day

No date announced here yet, but for Gnu Atheists, Gnu Anti-Religionists, etc., who love Draw Muhammad Day, etc., this could be a nice bit of turnabout.

It's true, free speech is precious, but, like anything else, it can become a dogwhistle, a shibboleth or what have you. And, at that point, you're close to a new fundamentalism.

Noting the just-passed 300th anniversary of David Hume's birth, I wonder if this, namely the "PR image" of self-declared French philosophy atheists such as d'Holbach, as much as any fear of the Brtish crown and government, was why Hume never used the word "atheist" about himself.

That said, maybe I'll start by Photoshopping PZ Myers' face onto a squid being eaten for dinner by Benedict XVI.

Or, anally sexed by Benedict XVI, or crucified by him.

Or, given the "gnu vs. accommodationist" dust-ups, if Ratzi the Nazi sodomizing PZ weren't it, how about PZ fellating Chris Mooney? AND Jerry Coyne doing the same to Josh Rosenau?

Better yet ... if I could lay my hands on a clip, maybe some videoshopping.

Like of PZ giving Ken Ham a big hug. Or George W. Bush.

Anyway, this idea is intended as a deliberate spoof, and a sarcastic one, of Draw Muhammad Day

And, as I said on my Draw Muhammad post, "cui bono"? To what benefit is the Draw Muhammad Day?

Does it, in and of itself, actually bolster free speech that much? Probably not much more than Justice Holmes' famous dictum about yelling fire in a crowded theater. What would probably help more is writing the U.S. and UN embassies of relatively moderate Islamic-majority countries, encouraging them to be more supportive of free speech, countries such as, say Jordan or Turkey.

Does it benefit more liberal-minded Muslims? Of course not. Especially in countries of some openness in the Muslim world, by painting a picture of yet more Americans tarring all Muslims with the same brush, it backfires, and potentially hurts them. That said, the majority of Gnu ringleaders, or "cadre formers," if you're P.Z. Myers (his post on the Mooney-Lindsey interview), prefer to lump the masses of believers of any religion with the most regressive elements within them.

Does it actually do anything vis-a-vis fundamentalist Muslim leaders? Of course not. It won't get them to suddenly "repent" of violence, narrow-mindedness, misogyny or other actual or alleged defects.

Does it benefit atheism or secular humanism in general? Absolutely not, and especially not in those countries I just mentioned.

Draw Muhammad Day is like using a shotgun instead of a rifle. Of course, for PZ, Jerry Coyne, et al, seem to like confrontation for confrontation's sake. Like ... Lenin! Another "cadre former" was he, after all.

That said, per the comment of Aquaria, I'm treating a somewhat childish original idea and an even more often and largely childish leadership cadre ("that word ... stop saying that word!" — Monty Python/Holy Grail/Knights Who Say Nee riff) with a somewhat childishly oriented version of sarcasm. Because that's about what it deserves.

Also per Aquaria's comment, no, the Gnus may not have started Draw Muhammad Day. BUT ... like ducks to water, like confrontationalists for confrontation's sake, I think it's been a thing many of them like pushing.

That said, is every Gnu that bad? No, I know that.

But, Gnus who readily have a "connectionist" mindset, "moderate" Gnus, are probably about as common as "moderate" mullahs on Iran's Supreme Council.

If Stanley Fish is for it, I'm agin it

The (self-proclaimed?) dean of American pomo philosophers says the Supreme Court got Westboro wrong. For a philosopher of language in America to hold that shows just how shallow he can be.

On language in general, perhaps Fish should read an Errol Morris column.

‘Obscenity’ becomes legal 50 years ago

Fred Kaplan looks back at the groundbreaking Supreme Court case.